The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
I suppose all writers are crazy, but if they are any good, I believe they have a terrible honesty. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
One would think a writer would be happy here -- if a writer is every happy anywhere. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law."… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
It is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be in the grasp of superficially… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people.… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Its idea of ''production value'' is spending a million dollars dressing up a story that any good writer would throw away. Its… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever, not only for as… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as I… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The wise screen writer is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn't take things too much to heart. He… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“The realistic style is easy to abuse: from haste, from lack of awareness, from inability to bridge the chasm that lies between… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“Personally I like the English style better. It is not quite so brittle, and the people as a rule, just wear clothes… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“James Cain – faugh! Everything he touches smells like a billygoat. He is every kind of writer I detest, a faux naïf,… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.” — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“He [James Cain] is every kind of writer I detest...a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress.… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Common sense is the guy who tells you that you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key]… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Dashiell Hammett took murder out of theVenetian vase and dropped it into the alley. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“He [James Cain] is every kind of writer I detest...a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“I had been stalking the bluebottle fly for five minutes, waiting for him to sit down. He didn't want to sit down. He just… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
“A three-piece Mexican band was making the kind of music a Mexican band always makes. Whatever they play, it all sounds the same. They… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
![“He [James Cain] is every kind of writer I detest...a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking.” quote by Raymond Chandler](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/614/raymond-chandler-629_writing_he-james-cain-is-every-kind-of-writer-i_41185.jpg)
![“Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote…” quote by Raymond Chandler](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/882/raymond-chandler-629_dashiel-hammett_hammett-was-the-ace-performer-he-is-said_20171.jpg)
